Page, Ariz. – Considering all the passion, the memories fused into a marriage that has endured for 30 years, Wayne Gustaveson might be excused a small measure of bias when it comes to assessing his favorite fishing hole.
“Right now, Lake Powell is among the top five fishing destinations in the country,” he declared.
Given a moment to reflect on the full force of what he had said, Gustaveson just as quickly realized he had it all wrong.
“No, make that the very best,” he amended.
“Of course, the situation will change,” Gustaveson said with the surety that comes from observing all those years of ebb and flow. “But right now, this is it. Anyone who comes here can catch a fish – and repeat as often as needed.”
This assessment came even before Gustaveson dropped the first lure in the water and retrieved it with a 5-pound striped bass attached. Before another dozen stripers up to 6 pounds hit the deck. Before visitors from Denver caught three other species of fish in not much more time than it takes to tell. Before the spring bite got really good.
A cold snap that blustered in on a 50-mph wind had chilled the surface and sent largemouth bass and crappie on a temporary retreat from the shallows. As you read this, a hot bite should be in progress and remain that way until you arrive – provided you don’t wait much past the middle of May.
As a Utah Department of Natural Resources biologist assigned specifically to a lake that impounds 186 miles of the Colorado River with a shoreline that stretches nearly 2,000 miles, Gustaveson understands the nuances of the Lake Powell fishery better than anyone else. It’s a knowledge anchored in science, experience and, best of all, the visceral instincts of a confirmed angling nut.
“I make a point of being out at least once a week as a way of keeping touch with the fishery,” he said, detailing the degree of this remarkable personal sacrifice. But even such unflagging altruism isn’t enough to fully fathom all the goings-on of such big water. To this end, Gustaveson has cultivated an unusual information network detailed elsewhere on this page.
Among the things it tells him is that stripers on the south end of the lake, toward the Arizona border, are lean and hungry; their cousins upstream in the areas most frequented by Coloradans tend to pack considerably more heft.
“This fish would weigh at least 8 pounds (farther north) at Bullfrog,” Gustaveson said of a specimen that pulled the scales to 6 at Padre Bay, not far from the principal marina at Wahweap on the Arizona-Utah border.
In the novel way that Gustaveson courts angler cooperation as a management tool, he encourages Wahweap anglers to keep limits of stripers to protect the fragile and vital shad forage base.
“Stripers are at a population peak. People are catching 30 fish a day, averaging 5 pounds.”
This bloom extends to largemouth bass and crappie, the product of water fluctuation tied to the 2001 drought. When Powell lost nearly half its water, thousands of acres of shoreline were exposed. The vegetation that blossomed, now flooded by rising water, forms a haven for these structure-happy species.
Both will be in spawning mode in the shallows for the next couple of weeks. Gustaveson anticipates a bass and panfish bonanza for years to come. Meanwhile, smallmouth bass continue their winning ways along rocky shorelines, and walleye do whatever they do between bites.
For those who don’t know Powell well, the biologist offers this advice: “Look for coves that include a channel of deep water. Fish use that for protection, then move up into the shallows for food.” This suggestion takes on added significance with magic of the season.
“The fish have taken off their winter coats and put on Bermuda shorts,” Gustaveson said.
With all this magic in the air, there’s just one missing element. Come down to the big lake and complete the ranking for yourself.
Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
And now a word from Wayne
To anyone with a craving for crappie or a yen for a filet of striped bass, there’s a palpable element to the advice offered by Lake Powell biologist Wayne Gustaveson.
You literally can eat his words.
Through a carefully cultivated network of angler information, Gustaveson crafts a weekly fishing report that provides even a first-time visitor a fighting chance at a mess of fish.
You’ll find these pearls on the Internet at wayneswords.com, updated each week as the best available account of activity and strategy for the lake, top to bottom.
“Powell is so big, I can’t begin to keep tabs all by myself, so I convinced anglers to buy into a concept that helps everyone,” he said. “People realize that if they tell me where they catch fish, they’ll have fresh information available when they come back in, say, a couple weeks.”
He explained that since the precise fish locations and bite patterns generally change every 10 days, few fishermen find themselves with the conflict of actually giving up a hot spot.
Gustaveson filters the data through his 30 years of experience as a Lake Powell scientist and angler to get a report everyone can chew on.
